Strangers In My Garden
by Chaed
Summary: Spider-Man's not-announcement turns into a deadly booby trap for Iron Man. With Tony and Pepper MIA Steve Rogers grows restless in his Wakandan refuge… and plays right into their enemy's hands.
1. Chapter 1

**STRANGERS IN MY GARDEN**  
 **by Chaed**

Chapter 1

"Yeah."

Tony picked one of the many hands that jutted up. Q&A was what everybody was really here for. After the unspectacular announcement of SI Medical's expansion the gathered media tried to tickle any last bit of headline-worthy material out of the press conference.

"Any news on Team Cap?"

Pepper rolled her eyes. Their favorite topic. Chewed any which way, it didn't fail to enthrall the tabloids.

Tony waved his hand dismissively. "You know I can't comment on that. Next."

It all warped into a monotonous amalgam of voices. Pepper paid more attention to that little bulge in Tony's suit pocket than the actual conversation itself.

With Spider-Man sending them empty-handed into the lion's lair that ring had materialized out of thin air.

Learning that it had been there, stashed away in Happy Hogan's custody for years, had thrown her off her game.

The Avengers had almost cost them their relationship. New York, Ultron… Tony continually tapping into reserves he didn't have, drawing on energy that wasn't there. They'd barely dodged the bullet after Civil War.

It had been a bumpy road since 2009, but she'd known that when she committed to it. Eight years of patting him on the back during hangovers and cleaning up after his orgies had given her enough of a taste of what it entailed to be with Tony Stark.

That he'd carried that ring with him for the better part of their relationship - even if just indirectly through Happy - gave her a turn. They had never addressed such topics other than in bon mot. Now that it lay out it the open Pepper didn't know what to think about it. She wasn't sure they were ready for it. If she even wanted to. The obligations, the repercussions.

"-not funny."

The sharpness of his last words were what caught her attention. A scale off from his media voice.

But then things picked up, fast.

One of the journalists stood, a glint of metal in his balled fist. She told herself she wasn't yet worried. There was security. Tony wore his vest. They were prepared for this. She clutched the StarkPad closer to her chest.

"You don't wanna do this, pal." Tony was buying time.

A half circle opened before the man. People hassled to get out of firing range. Everybody was here for a good story, but nobody was willing to die for it.

Her headset beeped. Security was on its way. She pursed her lips watching Tony lower his hands behind the pult. She knew what he was going for. The StarkWatch. Did he have to give them a show?

The doors burst open with guards, black fatigues, latest tech, paid well enough not to botch a potential amok run. She took a step back, towards the door. Reporters swarmed like ants from a smoked hive. They'd write their frontpage articles from the safety of their offices.

The aggressor dropped his weapon.

Pepper allowed herself to exhale.

The consecutive explosion swept her clean off her feet. She hit the wall, then the ground. Debris bit into the skin of her palms.

A second detonation. She was on her back now, gasping for air. Screams and blood and the stench of scorched bodies filled the room.

She wiped red from her eye, blinking to get her focus back. Tony was to her right, not behind the pult anymore, because the pult had ceased to exist. She saw dark spots on the Armani. He'd netted the brunt of the second blow.

He stretched an arm out for her. A futile gesture. They were divided by half the room. She couldn't tell if that was all the movement he was capable of. He didn't make further attempts to get up.

Their gazes locked just before she felt the steel embrace of Iron Man. The disarray of the room gave way to the orderly HUD interface. FRIDAY mapped the situation before the suit fully enclosed around her.

 _"Getting you out of here, Miss Pepper."_

The armor righted itself up. She felt the repulsors heat beneath her palms. The HUD overwhelmed her with information. Her own vitals blinked somewhere in the eighties.

"Visuals on Tony Stark," she ordered.

FRIDAY filtered him out. He was in the same position, on his back, one arm over his chest, the other pointed at her. The reminiscence of Malibu threw her in a stupor. She only shook herself free of it when Iron Man began to hover.

"Get him, FRIDAY. Pick him up."

The HUD flashed red. The repulsors achieved working temperature. She could see a flight path being calculated in a separate window.

"Execute order," she urged.

 _"I'm sorry. I can't do that."_

"What-" She gasped. "Manual override!"

 _"You don't have the authorization for that."_

She was close to the roof now. A puppet on strings. She couldn't move against the suit.

"Override!" she yelled, helpless.

 _"You don't have the authorization for that,_ " FRIDAY repeated, a bastion of calm. She pulled up a new window titled _RESCUE_ , but before Pepper could read that a warning sign flashed up and she was advised to brace for impact.

A third blast. Iron Man wavered, but proceeded to gain altitude. Tony now lay on his stomach, twitching, a dwarf in the distance.

Pepper tried to obtain control of her limbs, but she was locked into place.

 _"Activating stealth mode,"_ FRIDAY said.

"I don't want stealth mode! Turn around! Master override: Pepper Potts." She spelled it out. Her voice shook with frustration. She lost the feed on Tony. FRIDAY told her again that she was lacking authorization.

She was well above the compound by now. A fourth detonation struck the building. It began to bend in on itself.

She didn't understand. Tony programmed all his suits with the master directive to protect him when it came down to it. He'd told her as much after the showdown with Killian, when JARVIS had mistakenly identified her as hostile. It was a core command.

"Contact Tony Stark," she tried.

 _"I can't do that,"_ FRIDAY said. _"I'm in stealth mode. Communications are disabled."_

FRIDAY offered her the _RESCUE_ protocol again. Pepper skimmed through the lines. She bit the inside of her cheek.

"Goddamn you," she breathed. If Tony were here she'd strangle him.

 _"Sorry, Miss Pepper. Boss' orders."_

The suit was an iron prison around her. The _RESCUE_ protocol wouldn't allow her to pilot - she was passenger only.

"Get me the room's security feed. I need to know if he made it out of there." The compound was a corn of sand in the desert. She couldn't even tell if the explosions had stopped.

 _"I can't connect to the mainframe,"_ FRIDAY told her. _"My servers are damaged."_

Great. Pepper chewed on her lip. The scene replayed before her inner eye. The blast. Tony spasming on the floor. Was this what Afghanistan had been like?

She had a thought. "What were Mr Stark's last orders to you before you lost connection?"

 _"He requested Mark 46."_

Pepper glanced into the lower right corner of the HUD.

"This is Mark 47."

 _"Mark 46 isn't fitted for the RESCUE protocol."_

Pepper hated that she had to squeeze every bit of information out of the AI. JARVIS, in his time, had been a lot more forthcoming. FRIDAY only shared primary data. A tight-lipped girl.

She put it in plain English. "Did he fly an Iron Man suit out of there?"

FRIDAY was silent, calculating. Finally she answered, _"I can't confirm that."_

Pepper mouthed a silent curse. They were getting nowhere.

"What can you tell me?" she asked irritatedly.

 _"Time until destination is 32 minutes,"_ FRIDAY offered.

"And where's that? Our destination?"

 _"That's classified information."_

She was going to short-circuit the damn suit when she landed. And once she found Tony they were going to have a serious discussion about her access rights to FRIDAY's servers.

A sudden sting in her thigh. She twitched against her confinement. "What was that?"

A new tab opened.

 _"Preliminary diagnosis available,"_ FRIDAY said. A holo of her body showed several hotspots. Soft tissue damage, grade 1 concussion, elevated temperature. The system rated her Green - Non Urgent.

 _"550mg naproxen-natrium was applied for your convenience."_

She dismissed the report.

Those bombs hadn't been meant for her.

She thought of the ring in Tony's bloodied suit pocket.

"He's alive, isn't he?"

FRIDAY tallied the chances.

 _"I can't confirm that, Miss Pepper."_


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

"Hey. You need to look at this."

Steve took his eyes off the book. Wanda sat crosslegged in the leather armchair across from him, all wound up with something on her phone. He'd skirted the whole Internet vibe, but for downtime he still prefered a good old fashioned paperback. To put his nose between the pages, feel the coarse texture on his fingertips. A touchscreen couldn't hold a candle to it.

Wakanda was a hidden gem in a treacherous world, but after ten months it felt like a prison all the same. Warrants were still out on their heads. The stint on the Raft had left a lot of the big dogs enraged. The highest security jail ever built and he'd barged in there as if it were the local Walmart around the corner. He'd half expected Iron Man to crash the party but Tony had kept to himself since Siberia. Another issue irking him. And the whole Black Panther deal sounding twice as sweet as it turned out to taste.

"Steve."

Wanda uncrossed her legs. She held the phone out to him, jumpy. This was about more than the latest baby kitten video.

He took it. Youtube. "What's that?" It read _big blow up at new avengers compound LEAKED 1080p._

Wanda perched on the armrest of his own futon. "Here." She hit Play.

He turned the phone sideways. Tony inaugurated the new Avengers HQ. Just because half the team were on Interpol's most wanted list didn't mean the Avengers Initiative didn't continue. Those who had signed the Accords were operating still. And if rumors were true Tony was diligently recruiting new blood.

Wanda took the phone from his hands, impatient. "Let me skip to the fun part. There."

They joined back into the final part of a press Q&A, someone asking about news on Team Cap. Steve smirked. He was sick of how the media tried to drive a wedge between them. As if Leipzig hadn't been bad enough. They could do without the extra drama.

It was a handheld recording. Fast paced. He couldn't make out a lot after the first detonation. Too shaky. He caught a glimpse of Tony on the ground. Civilian - no sign of Iron Man. The audio was bad too, but he counted two more explosions before the video cut out.

His blood ran cold.

He stared at Wanda. "Is this real?"

"Oh, yeah." She typed something into the phone. "It's all over the net. It's all that's on the net."

She pulled up Google news. There were several articles. Explosive Revelations. Tony Stark presumed dead (again). New Supervillain in Town?

Steve put away his book.

Moby Dick would have to gallivant the sea for just a little while longer.

* * *

Their options were limited. T'Challa had offered them refuge under the condition that they kept a low profile and abstained from avenging until waters calmed and they were officially pardoned (if). They were free to move about the royal residence as they pleased, but it was not to be used as a base of operations. T'Challa had been clear on that. It was his terms or none at all.

Steve had rolled with it for the better part of the year. He'd tried to knock the renegade team together. With everyone against them they at least had to watch each other's backs.

Lang left first. He'd fled the law for the better part of his life, he argued, he'd continue doing it. On his own. He left Steve a way to contact him in case Ant-Man could be of help, but he didn't want to be pulled deeper into personal vendettas. "No offense, buddy, but Prison Break ain't my favorite show out there."

Clint called his farewells at the Wakandan border. He had a family on his conscience; he couldn't keep pokering with that high of a stake. They all understood.

Natasha was a wild card. Leipzig had been the last Steve had seen of her. She could be with Tony, or Fury, or for all he knew seeking solace in the loving arms of Mother Russia.

That left Wanda, Sam and himself. Bucky didn't count. One of T'Challa's terms had been mandatory cryostasis until they could figure out a foolproof way to crack Bucky's conditioning. He was too much of a risk this way, a timebomb. T'Challa had commitments to his people. He couldn't accomodate a wanted mass murderer with a three digit kill number under the hood. Bucky was the first to agree - he now slumbered peacefully in his ice-bed beneath the ground. A bizzare Sleeping Beauty.

"What's the plan, Cap?" Sam asked. He was itching to go. Anywhere. He suffered from the worst cabin fever of them all.

Steve took a deep breath. He looked from Sam to Wanda and back. He wanted so badly to tell himself that he'd learned something from Leipzig and Siberia and the aftermath of it all. That he shouldn't - couldn't - always trust his gut. He scratched at his beard. A new habit.

He wasn't going to blow this one.

He couldn't afford to.

* * *

His eyes throbbed from hours of staring at the screen. He pushed back, popped his neck, stretched tight muscles. A break was in order.

They'd spent the last hours researching the situation. The internet offered every scenario imaginable, from borderline PR gags all the way to a new Alien invasion. Take your pick. Stark Industries held out on statements. Tony Stark and Pepper Potts were still missing. Sam had a list of deceased. Wanda and about half the Youtube community believed that Tony had evac-ed in one of his suits and was now sitting it out on Fiji or the Maldives, but there was no reliable documentation on that. Nobody had seen Iron Man leave the building.

They did find one more clip: Tony getting knocked around by the blasts. He didn't look like he was on top of things. At all.

Steve turned to Wanda. "Could you try to…"

He pointed a finger at his head. He had yet to fully grasp the extent of her powers, but he knew telepathy was among them.

Wanda looked up from her phone, scowling. "Don't you think that was the first thing I tried? I can reach neither of them."

"Does that mean…?" He wouldn't finish the sentence.

Wanda shrugged. "It means nothing. They're on another continent. That's a long way. And I've tried Stark in the past. It hasn't really worked since after Ultron." She scrunched her nose. "It's like I'm hitting a wall."

"Wait," Sam piped up, voicing what Steve was thinking. "You're secretly messing with our minds?"

Wanda smirked, rubbed her hands mischievously. "Wouldn't you like to know now?"

"Cut it," Steve said. They had to keep their heads in the game. If they were going to leave Wakanda it had to be on good reasoning. This was a one-way ticket.

"I'll be right back," he told them. "Try to be productive, yes?"

There was one thing he could try. To appease his conscience.

* * *

He retrieved the Nokia, flipped it open to the only saved number.

He'd been waiting for it to ring a good half year now, but so far it'd remained silent. He wished he wouldn't have to be the one breaking the iron curtain, but the situation at hand demanded otherwise. If the explosions were real, if Tony was in any way incapacitated as Iron Man the entire Avenger Initiative was at risk - and that exposed the world to a whole new set of dangers.

He tapped the dial button. Held his breath.

The mailbox kicked in. This number was presently unavailable.

Steve flipped the phone shut.

Looked like now was his chance to repent.

* * *

There was a knock at his door.

"Yeah."

Sam poked his head in, eyebrows furrowed.

"Man, you might wanna come. We've got… uh…" He searched for the right term. "… a visitor."

They were two days into the event. The Internet was brimming with conspiracy theories. Tony and Pepper remained MIA. T'Challa had put in an official call for them, but lacking leadership both SI and Avengers Inc were running in circles. Nobody had yet confessed to the attack. Loose ends everywhere you looked.

T'Challa had cordoned off a small part of the residence to give them privacy. Apart from the allotted staff nobody erred this way.

Sam led the way to the common room. Two royal guards were flanking their guest.

Steve stopped in his tracks.

Well, he sure hadn't expected that.

"I think we're good,' he told the escort. "Thank you."

They waited for the room to clear. Wanda stormed in, alerted by some unknown force, ruffled hair and sleep-laden eyes. Still in her pajamas. Wanda was a lot of things, but no early bird.

"I _told_ you to phase through the walls," she exclaimed, upset. "Nobody needed to know you're here!"

Sam gaped. "You two-"

Wanda cut him off with a swat of her hand. "Don't. Not at this hour."

Steve ignored them, transfixed on their invitee. The mind stone glinted in the chandelier light.

Eventually he spoke.

"What is this all about?"


End file.
